Talk:helium

Merged with translations found on http://elements.vanderkrogt.net/elem/be.html with permission of the author.

Old Chinese?
Why is "Old Chinese" listed in the translations? Helium can't possibly have been known about 2,000+ years ago in China. 71.66.97.228 05:08, 26 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Probably should be called "Classical Chinese," I suppose. User:Polyglot got it from the Classical Chinese Wikipedia at 氦. —Stephen (Talk) 01:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

What is that, an article written in the early 21st century in Classical Chinese? But we don't have a heading "Classical Chinese," since that is a written/literary language. We do have Middle Chinese, Old Chinese, etc. And the article seems to indicate that helium was discovered and named in the 19th century. 71.66.97.228 01:27, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don’t know what you are trying to say. We have a Classical Chinese Wikipedia just like we have a Latin Wikipedia, an Anglo-Saxon Wikipedia, a Gothic Wikipedia, and an Old Church Slavonic Wikipedia. Old languages can still be used, and they develop terminology to deal with modern technology. I don’t know what you mean by "heading". Helium was discovered and named in the 19th century, so why shouldn’t the article indicate that to be the case? I don’t understand your question. —Stephen (Talk) 08:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Old Chinese is not the same as Classical Chinese. When I said "heading" I meant "translation." There should not be an "Old Chinese" translation for "helium" because helium was not known at the time Old Chinese was spoken. We document Middle and Old Chinese at Wiktionary primarily for the reading (pronunciation), and this character did not even exist when Old Chinese was used (c. 2000 years ago). 71.66.97.228 07:09, 29 October 2011 (UTC)


 * seems to be what we call this. —Stephen (Talk) 22:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)